the pastor of
the place thought right; he was considered as a trusty piece of old
household furniture, and would assuredly have sacrificed his life
without hesitation for his cousin; but he did not scruple to procure
more wood for the peasant, with whom he drank at the inn, than was
right; and if the old Junker had his _couteau-de-chasse_ ornamented
with silver, the origin of which was doubtful, the landed proprietor
was obliged to wink at it.[46]

Thus passed the life of a wealthy landowner between 1650 and 1700. It
was perhaps not quite so worthy as it might have been, but it may have
transmitted to the next generation family feeling and kindliness of
heart. Yet it must be observed that it was only a very small minority
of the German nobility who were in so favoured a position in the
seventeenth century.

Those who wished to make their fortunes in foreign lands far from their
families, were threatened with other dangers, from which only the most
energetic could escape. The wars in Hungary and Poland, the shameful
struggle against France, and a long residence in Paris, were not
calculated to preserve good morals. The vices of the East, and of the
corrupt court of France were brought by them into Germany. The old love
of quarrelling was not improved by the new cavalier cartel, the
profligate intercourse with peasant women and noble ladies of easy
virtue, became worse by the nightly orgies of fashionable cavaliers, at
which they represented festive processions with mythological
characters, and draped themselves as Dryads, and their ladies as
Venuses and nymphs.[47] The old Landsknecht game of dice was not worse
than the new game of hazard, which became prevalent at the baths and
courts, and which foreign adventurers now added to those of the
country.

But there are two more classes of nobles of that period who appear to
us still more strange and grotesque, both numerous, and both in strong
contrast to one another. They were designated as city nobles and
country nobles, and expressed their mutual antipathy by the use of the
ignominious terms _Pfeffersaecke_ and _Krippenreiter_.[48]

Vain and restless citizens strove to exalt themselves by acquiring the
Emperor's patent of nobility. These patents had of old been a favourite
source of income to needy German emperors. Wenzel and Sigismund had
unsparingly ennobled traders and persons of equivocal character: in
short, every one who was ready to pay a certain amount of fl